Oscars 2012: Oscar nominations avoid controversy

Marc Lee on the academy losing a nerve in the face of controversy
, for
the 2012 Oscar nominations.

Months ago, at the beginning of the awards season, I suggested that some of the finest films around would struggle to win recognition because the Oscar voters have a tendency to play it safe. I mentioned three releases (all British, as it happens) that should have had the industry prostrating itself at their feet — actor Paddy Considine’s stunning behind-the-camera debut Tyrannosaur, Shame by artist-turned-director Steve McQueen, and We Need to Talk About Kevin from Lynne Ramsay, an old hand, though hardly prolific.

It gave me no pleasure to be proved right by last week’s nominations: all three films were snubbed in all categories. And why? Surely no other reason than that the Academy instinctively shies away from the sort of tough subjects tackled by this trio of gems — domestic violence (Tyrannosaur), sex addiction (Shame) and mass murder (We Need to Talk About Kevin).

Not that I expected any of them to carry off the Best Picture statuette. No, where they really should have shone was in the acting categories. Olivia Colman’s performance as a battered wife is heartbreakingly poignant; Michael Fassbender is almost unwatchably raw in McQueen’s film; and Tilda Swinton, as the mother of a teenage monster, marshals a fierce vulnerability.

Meanwhile, the frontrunner for Best Picture clocked up yet another clutch of victories in the run-up to Oscar night on February 26. The Producers Guild of America gave its top prize to The Artist. The PGA’s choice has chimed with the Academy’s for the past four years.

Even more prescient are members of the Directors Guild of America, who have provided a pre-echo of the Oscars every year for the past nine years — and a total of 57 times over the past 63 years. Last weekend, they declared The Artist’s Michel Hazanavicius director of the year.